Chandra Cerrito Contemporary is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Uncommon Cosmos. This exhibition brings together four standout Bay Area artists—Michael Beck, David King, Mark Paron and Veronica Rojas—who are members of Visual Aid, San Francisco’s invaluable nonprofit organization that supports artists with life-threatening illnesses. In 1989, in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that devastated the Bay Area’s arts community, concerned artists, art dealers and collectors established Visual Aid, which has since expanded its mission to include artists affected by all life-threatening illnesses. Recognizing the toll chronic health issues can have on an artist’s creative practice and career, the organization opened Visual Aid Gallery and assists over 75 professional artists annually in producing, presenting and preserving their work. Visual Aid serves artists throughout the Bay Area.

This is the first co-curated exhibition by gallery director Chandra Cerrito and assistant director Ben Cooper. Together, they selected Beck, King, Paron and Rojas to highlight the outstanding talent among Visual Aid members.

Oakland-based Michael Beck received his MFA with high distinction in 1984 from California College of Arts and Crafts and has actively shown throughout California, New York and nationally since 1973. His oil paintings of mundane yet idiosyncratic objects are executed as masterful photo-realistic still lifes that range from endearing to subtly menacing.

After being raised in Mexico and Sweden, Veronica Rojas moved to the Bay Area in 1995 to earn her BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and MFA at California College of the Arts. Inspired in part by pre-Hispanic manuscripts, Rojas combines drawing, painting, collage and other techniques to create surreal worlds of colliding imagery--insects, anatomical parts, scissors, water droplets, plants and thought bubbles--frequently connected by serpentine tubes.

San Francisco-based David King has been exhibiting internationally since 1998. In his paper collages featuring cutout photographs of glistening gemstones, King explores metaphysical themes like Elysium, the mythical end of the earth, as well as forms that imply an intersection of the cellular and celestial.

Outer space comes to mind when viewing San Francisco artist Mark Paron’s wall-mounted sculptures made of crinkled metallic mylar. Resembling meteorites, they pose a contradiction between their lightweight media and their physically massive implications.

Uncommon Cosmos was created with the generous assistance of Visual Aid Executive Director Julie Blankenship. Proceeds from sales of exhibition artworks will benefit Visual Aid.